


sundays and sugar and stars

by deemn



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-24
Updated: 2014-01-24
Packaged: 2018-01-09 21:32:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1151026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deemn/pseuds/deemn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>To be perfectly honest, Regina still doesn’t understand how the whole thing isn’t Snow White’s fault.  [Established SQ]</p>
            </blockquote>





	sundays and sugar and stars

**Author's Note:**

> MOAR FLUFF. I blame Alyssa and Mary for this one.

To be perfectly honest, Regina still doesn’t understand how the whole thing isn’t Snow White’s fault.

(Well, _there’s_ an understatement if there ever was one.)

It’s Snow who calls early on a Sunday.  It’s Snow who puts the phone on speaker.  Clearly, that would make all subsequent events _Snow’s fault_.

Logic, apparently, doesn’t get Regina out of having to apologize.  It’s a good thing she’s gotten so very, very good at it.

_—_

_TWELVE HOURS EARLIER_

“No,” Regina whines groggily, when _In Bloom_ blasts from Emma’s phone.  “It’s _Sunday_.”

Behind her, Emma murmurs sympathetically and kisses her neck haphazardly before rolling away to grapple for her phone.  “I promised,” she mumbles, and swipes her thumb across the screen.  “Hey, Snow.”

With her face half-buried in the pillow, Regina can’t really hear what Snow is saying, but she knows that Snow knows that Sunday mornings are _hers_.  Sunday mornings, when Henry doesn’t have crew practice and Emma sleeps in and Regina gets to lounge around in her pajamas until a quarter to noon and just be with her family.  Sunday mornings are _hers_ and Snow damn well knows that.

“Thought we agreed 12:30?” Emma asks, and clears her throat.

They did agree 12:30, because Emma would never ruin Sunday morning.  

Irritation starts to seep into her muscles.

Snow’s rambling on with some explanation of why she’s ruining their lie-in and after forty-five seconds of Emma merely going “Uh-huh,” repeatedly, Regina rolls to face Emma and glare at the phone.  Emma covers a yawn and smiles apologetically at her while Snow’s voice gets louder and fuzzier.

Regina narrows her eyes and decides that Snow is a terror who must be stopped.

When Emma drags her hand away from her mouth, Regina catches her by the pinky and kisses the center of her palm, then the flower on her wrist, and smiles when Emma’s grin turns dopey and warm.  And then she scoots in close and kisses Emma’s chin, and the tip of her nose, and each corner of her lips, and when she hears what sounds like Snow clearing her throat in warning, she goes for gold and kisses Emma properly, and wetly.

There’s a lot of noise coming from the phone, and Emma’s trying to say something but also trying to kiss back and then Regina hears, very clearly, Snow’s voice, admonishing and disapproving.  So she doubles down and pulls back from the kiss and coos, “Honeybear, do you have to go right _now_?”

Emma’s whole body stiffens up and the noise through the phone dies momentarily, only to be replaced by what sounds like Snow choking.  Hopefully to death.

But the look of abject horror on Emma’s face wipes the victorious smirk from Regina’s, and Emma gently pushes her away and sits up with the phone still to her ear.  “Not a fucking word,” she says, voice icy and crisp, and adds, “I’ll be there in thirty.”  And then she hangs up the phone, puts it down between them on the bed, and stares at Regina open-mouthed.  “ _Honeybear_?” she finally sputters out.

This isn’t how this should go.  What _should_ be happening is, Emma should be cuddling up to her and laughing with her about how Snow possibly choked on her own vomit at the cloying and completely inauthentic pet name—well, Emma would only laugh at Snow’s actual reaction and not Regina’s dream interpretation—and there should be lazy, lazy kisses and maybe Sunday morning sex and definitely not what’s happening now.

Because what’s happening now is Emma kicking free of the sheets and grabbing her own hair in frustration and shouting, “Goddamnit, Regina!” before getting out of bed and stomping over to the bathroom door.  “She was on speaker!” Emma finally gets out, before she lets out a strangled scream and slams the door behind her.

Regina stares at the door with increasing dismay until her own phone chimes twice in a row.  The first is from Henry: _Y Ma up?_

The second is from Ruby: _Honeybear!??????_

Oh, no.

A third chime, and it’s Henry again: _omg did u rlly call her HONEYBEAR??????_

Oh, _no_.

—

She spends the afternoon cooking with Henry—tall enough now to get things down from the top shelves for her, and she never knows what she’s feeling about that change but she feels it strongly and all in her lungs—and he does his best to keep her laughing and entertained and distracted from the fact that Emma had stomped out of the house with a scowl and a gruff “Later” instead of her usual side-hug and sweetest kiss.  He can’t, however, keep her from checking her phone every half hour or so, and every time there’s nothing from Emma, the knot in her stomach twists tighter.

“Mom,” Henry says seriously, when he’s setting the table for dinner.  “You just gotta let her be mad about this one.”

“But—“

“ _Mom_ ,” he says again, and she sighs, takes a sip of the wine she’d opened last night.  (Sweeter after a day, much more to Emma’s palate now.)  “She doesn’t _stay_ mad as long as you just let her _be_ mad.  And you know she’s got every right to be mad.”

“If she’d just _said_ —“

But Henry gives her that flat, no-nonsense glare that she wishes like hell she hadn’t modeled for him for sixteen years.  “Maybe if you stopped trying to get _revenge_ on Grandma…”

“ _Sunday morning_.”

And this time, Henry smiles softly at her, reaches out and takes her hand.  “I know, Mom.  Bet you Ma yelled at her about that, too.”

She tries to smile—she really does—and watches the clock mark eight.

—

It’s not that she thinks Emma would ever run.  Certainly not over something trivial—if horrible—like this.  It’s just that— _good things don’t last_ , not for either of them, and three years of good is a long time.  So no, she doesn’t think Emma would run, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t still afraid.

At a quarter after ten, the front door opens, and Regina breathes out slowly, lets some of the tension seep from her shoulders.  The door closes softly, and even from all the way in their bedroom, she can hear the sounds of Emma putting her keys away and walking quietly into the kitchen for the glass of water she always brings to bed.  The kitchen door swings three times in decrescendoing thumps, and then there’s a fifteen second silence in the house before the door swings again and she can hear Emma’s footsteps crossing over to the stairs.

A pause six steps after ascending the staircase, and Henry’s warm tenor floats down the hall, rising and falling inquisitively.  And then she hears Emma laugh, and she can lean back into the pillows and resume reading the same page of her novel for the fortieth time.

When Emma comes into their bedroom, Regina can’t help but look up, and the second they make eye contact, Emma gives her a little, tiny smile.  “Hey,” she says, and crosses over to her nightstand to set her water down.

“Hey,” Regina returns, and lets her eyes follow Emma’s path back to the foot of the bed.

“Yeah, I’m still mad,” Emma grumbles, and sits down heavily, leans forward to undo the laces of her Tims.  “But less.”

She closes her book and tucks it to the side of her pillow, scoots forward a little.  “How bad was it?”

Grunting slightly with effort, Emma toes off one boot, shrugs.  “Leroy, Ruby, Granny, David, Jim, Archie.  Snow.  Some people I didn’t even know.”

Regina winces, waits for Emma to kick her other boot in the general direction of the closet before shifting onto her knees and carefully, carefully edging towards Emma.  She lets one hand, just the tips of her fingers, make contact first, stroking a soothing line along Emma’s spine, and they both exhale softly, ease up.  Emma curls into her touch, and Regina moves in, wrapping her arms around Emma’s waist and resting her chin in the crook of her neck.  “I never intended—“

“I know,” Emma cuts her off, and puts one hand over Regina’s intertwined ones, squeezes gently and leans her head back against Regina’s shoulder, closes her eyes briefly.  “I know you didn’t.”

They only get to stay like that for a few seconds before Emma shifts her weight and unbuttons her jeans, lifts her hips slightly to push them down her thighs.  Regina almost doesn’t notice, just leaning forward to support Emma’s shoulders, but then there’s the standard wiggle-and-kick that Emma always does to get her jeans off, and Regina looks down and part of her wants to laugh and part of her wants to cry.  Emma’s wearing her Batman boy briefs, and three years of good means that Regina knows Emma only breaks out the superhero underwear when she feels beyond vulnerable.

So when the jeans are finally in a pile on the floor, socks off with them, Regina tightens her embrace and hooks a leg around Emma’s hips and drops light, light kisses along the knotted muscle of Emma’s neck.  Emma sighs and wraps a hand around her ankle, pulls her leg in just a little closer, lets her own head drop back again and settles into the hold.  

It’s not enough, to just hold her, to keep kissing the softest skin under her jaw and along the neckline of her t-shirt.  It’s just not enough.  It doesn’t—it’s not enough.  So with two final kisses to the ridge behind Emma’s ear, Regina presses her lips against blonde curls and starts to sing.  Softly, of course, barely louder than a whisper, and her voice is a little too hoarse, a little too choked up, but she sings.  “ _I would take the stars out the sky for you.  There’s nothing in this world that I wouldn’t do._ ”

Emma turns her head and just looks at her, eyes so full of adoration and love—Regina’s voice cracks.  “ _If I could be your girl_ ,” she continues, and Emma lets out a little huff of a laugh, threads the fingers of their left hands together.

“That’s not even fair,” Emma murmurs, and her mouth grazes Regina’s for just a moment.  “You singing is a WMD.”

Another brush of their lips, and Regina thinks that maybe she can relax.  “I am sorry.  You know that, right?”

“I know,” Emma whispers, and reaches up to bring their mouths together again.  “I’m sorry, too. For being a little shit all day.”

“So we agree to blame this on your mother?”

“Regina,” Emma warns.

“ _Angel_ ,” she croons, and can’t quite hold in her laugh when Emma rolls her eyes, “ _You’re my life_.”

“Now you’re just cheating.”

“ _Angel, I wanna be your wife_.”

“You already are, idiot,” Emma grumbles, and twists in her arms to kiss her properly, fully, both hands coming up to cup her face and her unsupported weight pushing them both down into the mattress.  “And I love you.”

“I love you,” Regina whispers back, and just has to look at her for a moment, just to see everything in Emma’s eyes and in that tiny hint of a smile.  Just to remind herself to not be afraid.  “And I promise to never again call you _honeybear_ in earshot of anyone else.”

“Nice try,” Emma replies, and pinches her ass lightly.  “How about never again, period?”

Regina smiles, kisses her sweetly, sweetly, sweetly.  And then, breathy and low, rolling her hips slightly with every other syllable, she says, “You sure, _honeybear_?”

Emma pushes off of Regina slightly and glares.  “ _Never again_ , Regina.”

Laughing, laughing, and full of love, Regina pulls Emma back in, and kisses a smile back onto her face.


End file.
